MEDITATIONS FOR MIDWINTER: PART 3

Title: Resurrection

Artist: Piero della Francesa

Medium: Mural in fresco and tempera

Size: 225 x 200 cm

Date: 1463-65

Location: Piero della Francesca Museum, Sansepolcro

This composition is divided into two separate perspective zones within a framework formed at the sides by the two marble columns. The lower area, where the artist has placed the sleeping guards, has a very low vanishing point. Above the figures of the sleeping sentries, Piero has placed the resurrected Christ, portrayed with a more central vantage point. Christ’s solid peasant features are a perfect representative of Piero's human ideal: concrete, restrained and hieratic as well. The splendid landscape also belongs to the repertory of popular sacred images: Piero has symbolically depicted it as partially immersed in the barrenness of winter. The further the viewer looks to the left, the more the landscape appears bare and hostile, whereas the right half is already brought back to life - resurrected - by springtime.

Piero della Francesa (ca. 1415 - 1492) was a Italian painter, who, to his contemporaries was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca is chiefly appreciated for his art, which had been virtually forgotten for centuries after his death, but regarded since his rediscovery in the early 20th century as one of the supreme artists of the quattrocento. His painting is characterized by its serene humanism, its use of geometric forms and perspective. According to tradition, and by comparison with the woodcut illustrating Vasari's Lives of the Painters, in this mural the sleeping soldier in brown armor on Christ's right is a self-portrait of Piero.

Easter Sunday - Mary Magdalene at the Tomb

Title: Mary Magdalene at the Tomb
Artist: Antiveduto Gramatica
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 120 x 157 cm
Date: 1620-22
Location: The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

John 20:11-13 - Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” she said, “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.”

Such heavenly messengers appear at many of the significant points in salvation history. Their presence witnesses that the powers of heaven have been at work here. Often in Scripture the person who encounters an angel is struck with terror. But if Mary felt such a reaction, John does not mention it. Indeed, there is no indication that she even recognizes them as angels, presumably due to the depth of her grief. The angels speak to her with great compassion. In the face of this grief the angels do not bombard her with good news but rather ask the question that can lead to the healing word.

Antiveduto Gramatica (c. 1571 – April 1626), was a was a proto-Baroque Italian painter, active near Rome. He was born in either Siena or Rome, and according to Giovanni Baglione the artist was given the name Antiveduto ("foreseen") because his father had a premonition that he would be soon be born during a journey between his native Siena and Rome. It was in Rome that Antiveduto was baptised, raised and based his career.

Jesus Appeared To His Disciples By The Sea Of Galilee

Title: Jesus Appeared To His Disciples By The Sea Of Galilee
Artist: Alexandre Bida
Medium: Etching
Size: 28 x 21 cm
Date: 1873
Location: From Illustrations by Alexandre Bida, from Christ in Art; or, The Gospel Life of Jesus: With the Bida Illustrations. by Edward Eggleston. New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, 1874.

John 21:1-14 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” He called out to them. “No,” they answered. He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

We now know that the Gospel of Mark ended at 16:8... or do we? There are scholars who state that the ending of Mark can be found in John 21. John 21 has synoptic affinities which do not appear in John 1-20: the sons of Zebedee appear, the disciples are fishing, 28 words in John 21 do not appear elsewhere in John, but only in the synoptics. Further, Mark 14:27-28, 16:7 states that Jesus will reappear in Galilee. There are other clues that Mark foreshadows John 21. The disciples will be unaware of the empty tomb, because the women told no-one of what they saw (Mark 16:8). Accordingly, in John 21, Peter and other disciples have lost hope and returned to the lake; for having witnessed the risen Christ before, they now fail to realize Jesus is present in 21:4. The whole story is more like a first appearance to the disciples than a "third".

Alexandre Bida (1813–1895) was born in Toulouse, France and was a painter of the Romantic period. During Bida's youth, he traveled and worked in Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, and Palestine. He specialized in Orientalism and studied under Eugène Delacroix, but with an artist's eye for precision and perfection, he soon developed his own style. He was also an illustrator of the Holy Bible. As a Bible illustrator, Bida's Les Saints Evangeles was published in 1873. In it, the four gospels were enriched by his twenty-eight etchings. Of Bida's work, it was said that he brought a truth and genius that made his Christ reverent, refined, dignified, and strong.

Doubting Thomas

Title: Doubting Thomas
Artist: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn
Medium: Oil on panel
Size: 53 × 51 cm
Date: 1634
Location: Pushkin Museum, Moscow.

John 20:24-31 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Rembrandt depicts the well-known scene somewhat theatrical. By showing his wounds, Jesus takes away Thomas's incredulity. Contrary to most other depictions, Thomas does not stick his hand into the wound. His doubts vanish when he sees the wound, just as John describes it in his gospel. John himself is depicted on the right. He appears to be sleeping, but that should be regarded as having deep inner thoughts.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (July 1606 – October 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art history. Born in Leiden into a middle class family, Rembrandt becomes a pupil of the painter Jacob van Swanenburgh. In 1624, he studies in Amsterdam in the studio of Pieter Lastman, who will greatly influence his artistic development. Some say it is Lastman who illustrates to Rembrandt Caravaggio's use of chiaroscuro – the application of light and darkness to suggest depth.

Christ Appearing to His Disciples After the Resurrection

Title: Christ Appearing to His Disciples After the Resurrection
Artist: William Blake
Medium: Color print (monotype), hand-colored with watercolor and tempera
Size: 43.2 x 57.5 cm
Date: c. 1795
Location: National Gallery of Art, Washington.

John 20:19-23 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven”.

In visual terms, this work tells us about the things that influenced Blake as an artist. The sinuous curves that roll over the backs of the disciples recall similar effects in Gothic art (which Blake had studied during his apprenticeship). However, Blake’s typically muscular figures demonstrate other inspirations at play, owing much to the Renaissance master Michelangelo. Here, the body of Christ is firmed up and thickened, backing up Blake’s belief in the resurrection. Although the stigmata and signs of physical suffering are showing, the muscled shoulders, defined thighs and solid arms add visual weight and vital credence to this cornerstone of Blake’s faith. This image does exude a sense of intimacy, with the huddle of heads, grinding and groveling (some are even flush to the floor), an odd (and totally engaging) backdrop. The syrupy glow that emanates from Jesus sets a definitive mood too. The warm flesh tones on the exposed bits of body flush fierce focus-on-the-physical into the picture. And Christ’s (just) larger than normal eyes could make someone look at this with new eyes.

William Blake (November 1757 – August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Blake is considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. In 1788 Blake developed a process of etching in relief that enabled him to combine illustrations and text on the same page and to print them himself, thus ensuring complete independence of thought and expression. Four illuminated books appeared between 1789 and 1794. Many of his large independent color prints, or monotypes, were done in 1795. His work was largely neglected for a generation after his death and was almost forgotten when Alexander Gilchrist began work on his biography in the 1860s. It was in the twentieth century, however, that Blake's work was fully appreciated and his influence increased.

Resurrection Morning Maria Magdalina

Title: Resurrection Morning Maria Magdalina
Artist: Julia Bekhova
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 80 x 65 cm
Date: 1997
Location: Private collection

John 20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

An interesting divergence between the Synoptic Gospels and that of John, is that in the latter it is Mary Magdalene alone who first attended the tomb. John's Gospel gives Mary Magdalene the greatest prominence in the Resurrection narrative, but why she is singled out, rather than attending with the other women, is a matter of some speculation. John does not tell us why Magdalene went, whereas the other gospels say that the women went to anoint the body. Primarily, it would seem, she went to the tomb to mourn just as we would go to the grave of a loved one.

Julia Bekhova (b. 1964) is a contemporary Russian painter. In 1995 she graduated from the Repin Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in St Petersburg, having studied monumental painting under Professor A. A. Mylnikov. In 1999 she took part in mural works in renovated cathedral of the Christ Rescuer, and between 2001 and 2003 she also assisted with mural works at the city cathedral in Kursk. Since 2000 she has been teaching at the department of painting at the Repin Institute, and participated in various international art shows in such diverse cities as London, Hamburg and Beijing, China. More of her work can be seen here: http://academart.com/bekhova_imaginary_paintings.php

Christ on the Road to Emmaus

Title: Christ on the Road to Emmaus

Artist: Unknown

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 64 x 77 cm

Date: c. 1725

Location: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Luke 24:13-24: Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, "What are you discussing together as you walk along?" They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, "Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?" "What things?" he asked. "About Jesus of Nazareth," they replied. "He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see."

Thomas gets all the contemporary press as a doubter of the resurrection, but it is clear that he was merely one of a crowd, and these two followers are not yet convinced that Jesus has been raised from the dead. Like modern people in their skepticism, they will be persuaded only if they actually see Jesus. Here, then, is the major lesson of the Emmaus Road experience: though resurrection is hard to believe, be assured that it took place. Its reality means that Jesus' claims are true. He was more than a teacher and more than a prophet. He was the promised, anointed one of God. A host of skeptics saw that this was so, and they believed. Remember what God required of his Messiah: suffering, then vindication in exaltation.

Religion has always been a major inspiration for the folk artist. In the beginning of the eighteenth century new waves of immigrant painters arrived in the United States who were influenced by the High Renaissance concepts of painting by Italian and Dutch artists fulfilling commissions in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In the Hudson Valley, Dutch settlers between New York City in the south and Albany in the north produced a body of religious art of great significance. They and their descendants adorned their walls with paintings based on illustrations in Bibles brought from the Netherlands. Backgrounds were simplified and stylized, and the painting often had a linear, two-dimensional feeling.

The Resurrected Christ

Title: The Resurrected Christ

Artist: Unknown

Medium: Fresco

Size: tbd

Date: c. 1750

Location: Kalvária, Banska Stiavnica, Slovakia.

This depiction of The Resurrection is in the Cupola of the Upper Church at the Calvary complex in Banska Stiavnica, a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. The resurrected Christ appears standing on top of a cloud. Resplendent in divine light, wounds plainly visible, he holds aloft the cross and banner symbolizing triumph over death. Angels and cherubs swirl around, some gaping in awe while others are playing musical instruments. At this moment of Glory there can be no doubt God has power over Jesus' life and death, as he has power over all life and death. God is the Creator of life and is sovereign over death. If he points an endorsing finger at Jesus, how can humanity doubt him?

The Calvary complex consists of 25 buildings, including three churches and chapels decorated with invaluable paintings. There also are wood and ironwork furnishings and painted wooden reliefs. The chapels and churches are built on a steep slope of a dormant volcano called Scharffenberg (Sharp Hill). The Calvary’s foundation stone was laid in 1744 under cooperation of both the Catholics and Protestants. The work continued until 1751 conducted by the creator of the whole construction idea, a Jesuit priest František Perger, most probably based on an architectural rendering elaborated by a well renowned polyhistor, cartographer and constructor Samuel Mikovíni.

The Dead Appear in Jerusalem

Title: The Dead Appear in Jerusalem

Artist: James Tissot

Medium: Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper

Size: 27.6 x 19 cm

Date: c. 1890

Location: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York.

Matthew 27:50-54: And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"

To both pagan and Jewish audiences these signs would indicate divine approval of Jesus and disapproval of his executioners. The raising of dead persons at Jesus' death reminds us that by refusing to save himself, Jesus did save others. Yet by mentioning only “many” of the saints, Matthew clearly intends this sign merely to prefigure the final resurrection, proleptically signified in Jesus' death and resurrection

James Jacques Joseph Tissot (October 15, 1836 – August 8, 1902) was a French painter. To the surprise of all his friends, he suddenly found religion in his late 40s and decided to tell the story of Christ's passion in 350 illustrations. He conceived them not only in the realist style, but in the Orientalist idiom of Gérôme and Fromentin. The guiding intellectual force behind the images was Ernest Renan, whose "Vie de Jésus" (1863), one of the most influential books of the 19th century, who undertook to track down "the historical Jesus." The point of Tissot's watercolors was not to diminish Christ, as critics alleged, but rather to make him acceptable to that part of contemporary culture that could no longer accept Christ through the gauze of scriptural authority, that had to see him face to face.

Miracle at Nain

Title: Miracle at Nain

Artist: Mario Minniti

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 245 x 320 cm

Date: c 1620

Location: The Regional Museum of Messina, Sicily.

Luke 7:11-17: Soon afterward, Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went along with him. As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out — the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!" The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. They were all filled with awe and praised God. "A great prophet has appeared among us," they said. "God has come to help his people." This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

The widow weeps for the loss of her only child. She is now all alone in a hostile world; no family to care for her. Recognizing her intense pain, Jesus approaches the corpse on the plank. He touches the plank--an act that would render him ceremonially unclean, but that pictures his compassion. He tells the corpse to rise up. If there were no authority behind his words, the action would be blackly humorous or tragically misguided. But Jesus reveals the extent of his authority by confronting death.

This work identifies several characteristics of Minniti’s style as dense and rapid brushstrokes, the yield of the flesh, the choice of warm brown hues lit here and there by red and ocher. If the figure of Christ with outstretched arm to the boy remembers the position and gesture of the same subject painted by Caravaggio in Resurrection of Lazarus, it takes a different approach in the enveloping background which, although idealized, may contain a reference to the real landscape visible in Messina. In the painting, full of humor and enlivened by the late Mannerist Venetian tonality, we capture that special references to local artistic climate that between the second and third decade of the seventeenth century reflected in a more sedate turn-of-the-century naturalism.

Mario Minniti (December 1577 – November 1640) was an Italian artist active in Sicily after 1606. Very little is known of Minniti’s childhood, family life or education. His movements are better recorded after 1593, when, at the age of fifteen, he moved to Rome, following the death of his father. There he became the friend, collaborator and model of the Baroque painter Caravaggio. His main fame today is his identification, or proposed identification, as a model in many of Caravaggio's early works.

Resurrection of the Flesh

Title: Resurrection of the Flesh

Artist: Luca Signorelli

Medium: Fresco

Size: tbd

Date: 1499-1502

Location: Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto.

John 5:25-29: “I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.”

Signorelli went to Orvieto, and on 5 April 1499 was awarded the contract for the decoration of the blank sections of vaulting over the altar in the Cappella Nuova. The Cappella Nuova contained a couple of frescos which had been begun by Fra Angelico, but the remainder had been left unfinished for about 50 years. The works of Signorelli in the vaults and on the upper walls represent the events surrounding the Apocalypse and the Last Judgment.

Two giant angels with long trumpets stand in the sky, blasting, banners unfurling. The banner, white with red cross, symbolizes the victory of the resurrected Christ over death. The symbol was derived from the 4th century vision of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, and follows his use of a cross on the Roman Standard. Below the angels the earth is an off-white, flat and featureless stage, stretching away and stopping at an abrupt horizon in the middle distance. Its plain whiteness sets off the bronzed flesh and the shadows of the risen and rising humans, both male and female. Viewed all together the huge frescoes give an impression of overcrowding and of confusion which at first is far from pleasing. But the individual details demonstrate the greatness of Signorelli as an illustrator: the macabre but hilarious idea of the nude with his back to the observer who is carrying on a conversation with the skeletons; or the skulls surfacing through the cracks in the ground, who put on their bodies as though they were a costume. They pull themselves up through the ground, and offer helping hands, and gather and embrace in a big reunion. In this section of the fresco cycle Signorelli has given free rein to his inventive genius which is still an extremely important part of our figurative heritage.

Luca Signorelli (ca. 1450, Cortona - 1523, Cortona) was an Italian Renaissance painter who was noted in particular for his ability as a draughtsman and his use of foreshortening. The massive frescoes of the Last Judgment in Orvieto Cathedral are considered his masterpiece. He displayed a mastery of the nude in a wide variety of poses surpassed at that time only by Michelangelo, and it was said that his works were highly praised by Michelangelo, and several instances of close similarity between the work of the two men can be cited. By the end of his career, however, Luca had become a conservative artist, working in provincial Cortona, where his large workshop produced numerous altarpieces.

The Raising of Jairus' Daughter

Title: The Raising of Jairus' Daughter

Artist: Edwin Longsden Long

Medium: oil on canvas

Size: 163 x 183 cm

Date: 1889

Location: Victoria Art Gallery, Bath.

Mark 5:35-43: While Jesus was still speaking, some men came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue ruler. "Your daughter is dead," they said. "Why bother the teacher any more?" Ignoring what they said, Jesus told the synagogue ruler, "Don't be afraid; just believe." He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, "Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep." But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum!" (which means, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" ). Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

The artist shows the most dramatic of moment of this passage, just before the girl comes back to life. Her parents and a disciple watch with anticipation as the miracle takes place. Jesus had sent the faithless outside, put them out, keeping only those who believed with him in the room. The window to the right of the picture, with a view of the city of Nazareth, is the primary source of light within the scene. But the reflection off the face of Jesus, most notably the illumination provided on his mouth and beard, make it seem as though the words ‘Talitha koum” are also a source of light.

Edwin Long (12 July 1829 – 15 May 1891) was an English genre, history, and portrait painter, born at Kelston, near Bath. After working locally as a portrait painter, he moved to London in the 1850s and became a very successful artist, painting Middle Eastern scenes populated with beautiful young women. Long was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1870 and an academician (RA) in 1881. Although he only painted a few Biblical pictures, religion was very important to Long. His parents had given him a religious upbringing; they were Congregationalist Dissenters and attended chapel regularly. Long never forgot his place of birth: in the 1880s he moved into an imposing house which he called Kelston.

Raising of Lazarus

Title: Raising of Lazarus

Artist: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Medium: oil on canvas

Size: 380 x 275 cm

Date: 1608-09

Location: Museo Nazionale, Messina.

John 11:38-44: Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. "Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days." Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

Lazarus was the patron of the wealthy Genoese merchant Giovanni Battista de' Lazzari, to whom Caravaggio was contracted to paint an altarpiece in the church of the Padri Crociferi for a fee of a thousand scudi, more than double any Caravaggio had received previously. Most of Caravaggio's religious subjects emphasize sadness, suffering and death. But in this painting he dealt with the triumph of life, and in doing so created the most visionary picture of his career.

As in several paintings from this period of Caravaggio's career, he has set the scene against blank walls that overwhelm the actors, who are laid out like figures on a frieze. As is usual with Caravaggio, light becomes an important element in the drama, picking out crucial details such as Lazarus's hands - one lax and open to receive, the other reaching towards Christ - and the wonder-struck faces of the onlookers. Some of these people may have been modeled on members of the community, but at this stage Caravaggio did not have time to base himself wholly on models and relied on his memory - the whole design is based on an engraving after Giulio Romano, and his Jesus is a reversed image of the Christ who called Matthew to join him. There is a remarkable contrast between the flexible bodies of the grieving sisters and the near-rigid corpse of their brother. Jesus is the resurrection and the life and in the darkness through him the truth is revealed.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, (1571, Caravaggio - 1610, Porto Ercole) was an Italian artist active between 1593 and 1610. He was the first great representative of the Baroque school of painting, noted for his intensely emotional canvases and dramatic use of lighting. The Resurrection of Lazarus was created during a period when Caravaggio was on the run, having fled authorities in Rome after a violent incident in 1606. The works of Caravaggio's flight, painted under the most adverse of circumstances, show a subdued tone and a delicacy of emotion that is even more intense than the overt dramatics of his earlier paintings. Famous and extremely influential while he lived, Caravaggio was almost entirely forgotten in the centuries after his death. Only in the 20th century was his importance to the development of Western art rediscovered.

Jesus Appears to the Disciples After the Resurrection

Title: Jesus Appears to the Disciples After the Resurrection
Artist: Imre Morocz
Medium: Oil on canvas on plywood
Size: 30 x 40cm
Date: 2009
Location: Private Collection

Mark 16:14-18 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

This passage, not part of the original Mark that consists of the material to end of Mark 16:8, is nonetheless used as a clear exhortation for evangelism, a direct command to “Go into all the world and preach the good news”.

The moment when Jesus finally appeared to the eleven is ethereally captured in this painting. A wash of warm light spills over the resurrected Christ. His assembled disciples gaze at his wound, kneel before him, and recognize at last what they had failed to see before.

Imre Morocz (b. 1967) is a contemporary portrait artist and landscape painter from Hungary. His paintings are an expression of his deep love of the Advaita school of Hindu philosophy, whereby everything is considered a part of a great Oneness. To view his own site and for links to other sites featuring more of his work, use the following link: http://www.paintingsilove.com/artist/imremorocz

Christ and his Disciples on the Road to Emmaus

Title: Landscape with Christ and his Disciples on the Road to Emmaus

Artist: Jan Wildens and Hans Jordaens III

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: 123 x 168 cm

Date: C. 1640s

Location: The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Mark 16:12-13 Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

He is said to have appeared to them in another form, perhaps in the form of a traveler, in another dress than what he usually wore. Regardless, these disciples should have recognized him, and in an event more fully related in Luke 24:16–31, when they finally shed their doubts, they knew him immediately. The rest also did not believe, and suspected that the others eyes had deceived them. The proofs of Christ’s resurrection were given gradually, cautiously, that so the assurance with which the apostles preached this doctrine afterward might be the more satisfying. That his staunchest followers were disbelieving at first, shows that afterward they did not believe it capriciously but rather with a full conviction.

Jan Wildens (Antwerp, c. 1596 – 16 October 1653) was a Flemish Baroque painter and draughtsman. He is best known for painting landscape backgrounds for Rubens and for many artists in his circle, but his finest independent work shows he was an accomplished master in his own right. The figures in this landscape were painted by Hans Jordaens III, another Antwerp artist. Jordaens (b. 1595 - 1643, Antwerp), who appears to have been fairly successful, trained with his father, Hans Jordaens II, who was also a painter. The younger Jordaens was responsible for finishing works by Abraham Govaerts after the latter's death in 1626.

Mary Magdalene Announcing the Resurrection to the Apostles

Title: Mary Magdalene Announcing the Resurrection to the Apostles

Artist: Unknown

Medium: Illumination on parchment

Size: 18 x 14 cm

Date: c. 1123

Location: St. Albans Psalter, St Godehard's Church, Hildesheim.

Mark 16:10-11 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

Yet again, the disciples are unable to grasp the magnitude of what has occurred. Despite Jesus having told them on a number of occasions that he would be raised from the dead (e.g. Mark 9:9-10), they refused to believe what Mary Magdalene had to report.

The St Albans Psalter, also known as the Albani Psalter or the Psalter of Christina of Markyate, is an English illuminated manuscript, one of several Psalters known to have been created at or for St Albans Abbey in the 12th century. It is widely considered to be one of the most important examples of English Romanesque book production. The almost unprecedented lavishness of decoration contains a number of iconographic innovations that would endure throughout the Middle Ages.

The main artist decorating the St Albans Psalter is called the ‘Alexis Master’ after a section of the work which contains the biography of a fifth-century Roman saint called Alexis. The Alexis Master is credited with introducing a new figurative and narrative style into English art in the 1120s. This new style was much indebted to eleventh-century German and early twelfth-century Italo-Byzantine style.

The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene

Title: The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene

Artist: Alexander Ivanov

Medium: Oil on canvas

Size: tdb.

Date: 1835

Location: The State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

Mark 16:9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons.

Most biblical scholars agree that the original writer of the Gospel of Mark did not write the verses that follow 16:8, and the question arises as to whether that verse was the original ending of the Gospel. That idea has always seemed to make readers uneasy, and in antiquity there were several attempts to graft an ending onto Mark (16:9-20). These spurious endings offer the reader a choice: did the writer mean for the Gospel to end at 16:8, or was there an original ending that was somehow lost? Some scholars have proposed that the Gospel of John, chapter 21, contains most of the elements that were originally found in Mark. There is also evidence that Luke knew the original Mark complete with the material found in John 21, as Luke 5:3-10 merged Mark's story of how Jesus met Peter with a tale of a miraculous catch of fish found in John.

Ivanov’s ‘The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene’ was warmly welcomed in St Petersburg and won him the title of Academician. The artist himself, however, was not entirely happy with the painting and it’s formal theatricality, reportedly referring to it as merely "corn-cob." Yet in his fascinating preparatory drawings for it, he conveyed the figures in a freer and more natural manner.

Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov (July 28, 1806 – July 15, 1858) was a Russian painter. His father, Andrey Ivanov, was an artist, the professor of the Academy of Arts, and it was his father who first taught Alexander art. Beginning around 1833, and throughout the next twenty years of his life, Ivanov consistently pondered over the theme of his masterpiece ‘The Appearance of Christ to the People’. This huge painting became, with time, synonymous with Ivanov's entire career. In 1858 Ivanov returned to St Petersburg and died two months later. His tremendous influence on Russian art can hardly be assessed in a few words. He undoubtedly ranks among the major Russian artists of the first half of the nineteenth century. His paintings, studies and drawings are a priceless part of the classical heritage.